Half-human, half-vampire Dorina Basarab is back--and facing her biggest challenge yet in the next urban fantasy in the New York Times bestselling series.
Dorina Basarab is a dhampir--half-human, half-vampire. As one of the Vampire Senate's newest members, Dory already has a lot on her plate. But then a relative of one of Dory's fey friends goes missing. They fear he's been sold to a slaver who arranges fights--sometimes to the death--between different types of fey.
As Dory investigates, she and her friends learn the slavers are into something much bigger than a fight club. With the Vampire Senate gearing up for war with Faerie, it'll take everything she has to defeat the slavers--and deal with the entirely too attractive master vampire Louis-Cesare....

I’ve been looking forward to read this book for years now (book #3 was published in 2012), and when I find out book #4 has a publishing date, I was overjoyed. Now that I’ve finished reading it, it was worth the wait and I was not disappointed! Shadow’s Bane was an action adventure read where we gain a deeper insight to Dory’s Vampire half. As usual, there were tons of going on in this book, from complex vampire politic, Dory’s struggles with her darker Vampire self, to Dory’s romantic relationship with Louis-Cesare.

Dory is a dhampir, who is half human and half vampire, however instead of living in a cohesive, we found out in order to save Dory’s life, her father Mircea had somehow separated Dory’s human and vampire into two distinct beings. Due to recent events it would seem the safeguard Mircea had placed in her mind has been weakened, and the Master Vampire within Dory was getting stronger and stronger. So what does this mean for Dory? To shine a light of Dory’s complicate situation, this book has unveiled interesting things from Dory’s past, the part of her childhood that she couldn’t remember or didn’t know it had existed.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and the only complain I have is the story kept going back and forward between the present time and Mircea’s past in the 15th century Venice, where he was a newly turned vampire with his young daughter, Dory. While I thought it was necessary to understand Dorina’s memories and point of view, but I find myself skimming over those parts, as it seems to disrupt the present pace of the story, which I am more interested in.

I loved Louis-Cesare’s character and I wished the book has spent more time on their relationship. I felt their timing was never right, something was always going on to interrupt them, and as a reader that was definitely frustrating.

Overall, Shadow’s Bane has everything I enjoyed to read in the Dorina Basarab sereis, and I thought the long wait was worth for the new development of Dory’s story. I look forward to read about the next exciting adventure of Dory, as well as seeing more of Louis-Cesare! I would also highly suggest readers to read Dorina Basarab #3.5 (which is currently free on amazon), before jumping back into the series.